A very successful B2B matchmaking event was organized in the framework of the GENEESS project. About 70 participants from the hightech, biotech and farma industry were attending this event.

This event was organized on Thursday April 3, 2014 at Janssen Pharmaceutica in Beerse. The research organization in Beerse forms, together with the research centers in other European countries and the USA, one global organization, focusing on five key research domains: neuroscience, infectious diseases and vaccines, oncology, immunology and cardiovascular & metabolic disorders. In Beerse the main focus is on the first four research domains. The Beerse campus is the worldwide discovery center of oncology for Janssen.

The focus of this matchmaking event was on the theme "medical diagnostics" regarding the future developments where the Pharma/life sciences industry and the micro/nano-tech industry will cooperate more closely. This event was an excellent opportunity for the DSP Valley members, which mainly represent the micro/nano-tech industry, to come in contact with the Pharma/life sciences industry. We are sure that the development of smart diagnostics for rapid detection of different diseases is going to be increasingly important.

The general presentation of Janssen was held by Eric Snoeckx and gave more insight about the Beerse and Geel campus. More information about Janssen labs was presented by Tom Aelbrecht. Janssen labs will launch starting from the first of January 2015. Werner Verbiest gave a presentation about Janssen Diagnostics and the view of Janssen on this emerging domain. These presentations of Janssen can be downloaded here.

The presentation of Frederik Horemans gave an overview and introduction to the business theme of medical diagnostics and can be downloaded here. Geert Adriaens presented the Nano4Health project where DSP Valley is a project partner. This project focusses on the interface between biotech and hightech. The project presentation can be found here.

On the basis of short pitches, 18 companies had the possibility to introduce themselves. Many useful contributions in the development of smart diagnostics were presented. Topics included: biomarker detection, microarrays, PCR, lab-on-chip, point of care testing, microfluidics, MEMS, biosensors, personalized healthcare, biochips ...

In this way "hot opportunities" and complementarities between the different technologies became clear. Afterwards it was possible to have one-on-one conversations with companies of interest. There were about 60 meetings planned which proves the interest in medical diagnostics.

The pitches can be downloaded, some are not public due to confidentiality: